


Liquid

by flightspath



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Academia, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bisexuality, Daddy Kink, Depression, Dirty Talk, Drinking, Exes, F/M, Fantasizing, Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Making Out, Masturbation, Minor Allison Argent/Stiles Stilinski, New England, Partying, Past Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, Phone Sex, Pining, Pre-Threesome, Recreational Drug Use, Sexting, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-09-02 14:37:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16788913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightspath/pseuds/flightspath
Summary: He can usually work at home for an hour before he realizes that he’s flopped on the couch sideways, fucking around on his phone. Scrolling through Instagram, trying not to accidentally click on a student and then get stuck in an algorithmic hellscape of 19 year olds’ profiles.There’s a student who wants to fuck him, bad. Like, loudly advertising his cam shows bad. Lip biting bad. “Daddy” bad.He never pictures the kid when he’s getting off, not once, but it turns him on just to feel that desirable.----The one where the gang's a bunch of depressed, hard partying college professors. This one's gonna be a slow slog through winter, my friends. Sterek forthcoming in chapter 2.





	1. Blue (Introduction)

_A club. After midnight. House music, European DJ, full VIP. Everything with that hazy glow, moments happening too quick: when did we get upstairs, get that drink, push up front toward the stage? He’s sweating at the temple from the champagne, weed, red bull, gin and tonic, vape, gin and tonic again, champagne again. The world is blue, blue, blue, full of blue light in the bathrooms and against the brick wall and towards the stage, blue drinks, blue dress… on the dance floor, hands on Allison’s waist, hands in someone’s hair, Lydia gripping his chest from behind. He feels so good. He closes his eyes. The music is loud, blue, and he feels so, so good._

1.

He gets to his office at 12:30 on Monday. It’s truly the best he could fucking do. He prays no students showed up for office hours, let alone another professor.

“Stiles! Were you working from home this morning?”

Caught in the act. Stiles turns around in the door of his office and holds off the department secretary, making small talk, telling small lies. Then he locks the door and puts his face down on the desk for 15 minutes before he even takes his laptop out of its bag. 

2.

He floats through the week. Campus feels so wet to him-- wet leaves, wet pavement, wet wool scarf hanging over a chair in the front row of the lecture hall. 

He wants to get smashed in the worst kind of way. He wants to go to a big city far away and only live between sundown and 5am, never see the light, drink all night, fuck and writhe and snort and claw. No words, no names. No memory. No remembering anything.

Instead it’s the week before midterms: his students aren’t up to par, and anything he assigns'll come back to bite him in the grading period from hell. Freshman are useless. Seniors are dicks. He has two thesis advisees who are more cripplingly depressed than he is.

Lydia’s stopped having late night phone sex with him, that’s the real drag. Not since she started getting more serious with Colin. Stiles misses licking her pussy. He misses getting fucked-- not by Lydia. By anyone. He gets stoned on Friday nights, usually, begging off colleagues to get high and play with his ass and fuck himself with a dildo. Keyboard sticky with lube as he watches porn of guys getting fisted and double fucked. 

Then Saturdays he tries to wake up and grade papers, feels a weird rush of gross out as he packs away toys and deletes Tumblr messages he’s sent to gay porn blogs. He can usually work at home for an hour before he realizes that he’s flopped on the couch sideways, fucking around on his phone. Scrolling through Instagram, trying not to accidentally click on a student and then get stuck in an algorithmic hellscape of 19 year olds’ profiles.

(There’s a student who wants to fuck him, bad. Like, loudly advertising his cam shows with other students bad. Lip biting bad. “Daddy” bad.

He never pictures the kid when he’s getting off, not once, but it turns him on just to feel that desirable.)

He’d never text Allison to hook up either, it’s not like that. They made out in front of Scott once, though, at the end of a long night of drinking. Scott was hard and gripping squeezing his cock through his pants, and Stiles could feel Allison grinding on top of his thigh, panties twisting under her dress. They broke it off laughing, but ever since then things get a little blurry, sometimes, after a few glasses. They’re stoner buddies, got in the habit of taking it outside when Scott was getting drug tested at his last vet job, and they usually end up burning through a joint together at parties. They sit a little closer than they used to. No one’s getting off, but it’s fun to confuse people.

(But now Stiles is in bed thinking about Scott and Allison-- jerking off about it, really, picturing how fucking Scott gets to spread her long legs open and oh… )

He’s so fucking lonely. 

He gets into the shower to finish and let the water rinse the mess off. 

3.

Saturday night, post-midterms: the cavalry rides in. The four of them (it was five, but Colin knows when he can’t keep up) go hard, start with shots at 5:00 at Scott and Allison’s. There’s something about this town, they decided-- the people here are too soft, you can’t survive without a dirty secret or two. Sometimes they honest to god pull the shades down before they bring out the bottles of vodka.

It’s just, it gets dark so fucking early. It feels like the neighbors are listening all the time, townies who put up Christmas lights the second Thanksgiving’s over. The university’s small, prestigious but not big enough to invite a real city to grow up around it. Off campus, you can hear a pin drop by 9:30pm. Stiles would murder for even a 24 hour pharmacy. 

But they met here, didn’t they? Allison teaches a yoga class outside of her work in the physics department, that’s where she met Lydia; Lydia and Stiles met after, introduced at a stuffy open house. Scott came along with Allison, her other half since undergrad. He and Stiles went on a beer run together the second time they met and came back blood brothers. 

They drink (“To us!”), and then drink again (“Saturday, bitches!”), then they take another shot (“To Stiles getting laid!”), and then another (“To sluts like y’all, honestly”). Stiles and Allison do the joint thing; Lydia’s took Ativan earlier, so she’s zonked. 

_(They turn on blue lights in the living room. It’s like last time they drove down to New Haven and went to that club, they’re playing house music and the living room is smoky and soon Stiles is giggling that he feels like a grad student again. Allison digs out some Molly she got at a conference, dangles a little plastic baggie in front of Stiles like a prize. Scott’s dancing on top of the couch and Lydia spins, spins, spins around the living room._

_A cab, a bar, a soft booth. That was a long drive, Stiles swears he watched an entire foot of snow fall out the window. It’s blue here, too, cool neon blue across his face. He feels good again. He’s so warm here, the blue is liquid like a drink, like water down this throat. He drinks. They’re having so much fun and he dances again, blue, blue. He drinks.)_


	2. White (Winter)

1\. Derek’s not complicated, Boyd thinks. There’s nothing nuanced or novel about being incapable of getting your shit together. 

Loyal, smart, generous. He’s diplomatic, usually. Not nearly as vain as you’d think, given that he’s a 9 on a bad day. Funnyish, but not in a way that makes you jealous. He gives you a seat at the table.

And: 

Insecure, naive, avoidant, falls for the wrong guy over and over, never seems to figure it out. Easily deterred exactly when it counts, tenacious about all the wrong things. Bordering on gullible, can’t look out for himself for shit. Self-sabotages, quits, goes on medical leave without telling anyone. Works out until he pukes every morning before 7. Fucks without condoms and gets chlamydia twice in one year. Writes a groundbreaking article and never submits it for review; gets drunk. Has a panic attack every birthday and is surprised every time.

He looks like some all-american heartthrob volunteer firefighter, or something, until you realize that he hasn’t slept in 3 days because a hot grad student gave him an altoid tin full of adderall and told him drugs were cool. That he could’ve made tenure-track last year if he’d just showed up to work more. It makes Boyd want to walk with him like a jaded bodyguard, slapping the vultures away when they inevitably circle: men, students, major financial decisions, anyone peddling self-destruction. 

The hardest part is:

He’s soft. Even when he’s brilliant-- impassioned and pacing the floor of a lecture hall, notes abandoned on the lectern, lighting young minds on fire-- there are no sharp edges. Even when he’s pissed, moralistic, socking some guy in the face for squeezing a girl’s ass at a party. Even when he’s winning. Especially when he’s winning.

He’s always plunging forward in life and then feinting at the last minute, bailing out, playing it safe, taking himself out of the running.

He’s sad. Even when he’s loving-- holding his friends and sisters, swaying to pop folk at a wedding under the stars, cheering and whooping for his students as they collect their diplomas in graduation gowns and cheap plastic sunglasses-- the air around him’s heavy. He's a dark, tender thing. Always looking around like he doesn’t want to ruin anyone else’s fun.

He lives like life is happening to him, at him, on him, and he’s overwhelmed by the assault. He doesn’t live like he’s making a life, laying bricks to make a path, setting goals to climb to. He exists like he’s already jumped off a cliff and he’s just getting beat to shit on the way down. 

He’s Boyd’s best friend. 

2.

Derek hasn’t seen the sun in six days. Apparently it came out from behind the clouds on Tuesday, but he was teaching a class and missed it. He thinks Friday morning was sunny, too, but he had stayed in bed with the blinds closed as long as he could stand it. It’s been continuously snowing from a thick white sky otherwise. 

New year, he thinks darkly, same shit. 

Boyd comes over on Saturday night to bitch about it, brings cider. 

“You know there are people who do snow sports? Like, that’s how they cope,” he drawls. 

“I believe they’re called ‘winter sports’ and yes, I do know about this. I’ve seen them in movies.”

Boyd huffs out a laugh. He’s from Jacksonville and met Derek in Austin at UT. They’d both meant to stay there, for the weather as much as the work. Texas seems like a long time ago now.

“Listen man,” Boyd’s saying, “I think this is the winter that gets me. It’s too damn dark. I gotta take up snowshoeing or something, I'm about to lose it.”

Derek sips his cider, leans back to picture it. “You think snowshoeing’s your winter sport? Not hockey?”

“Hey-- I’m more than muscle, Hale.” They take a synchronized drink in silence. 

“You think I should get a dog?”

“Nah man, I think you should get a life. I should too, I have cabin fever like nine months out of the year up here.”

They grouse back and forth a while before they turn on a Rockets game and stop complaining. They do this-- complain, make promises, trade advice-- but they’re both still miserable and living in Vermont, so, what do they know. 

Derek’s phone vibrates in his pocket off and on; Stiles has been texting him for hours, asking questions about the new semester, what conferences he’s going to this year, etc. etc. He's dropping outrageously flirty texts here and there, then hedging his bets (poorly) by following up with a stream of interrogation about work. 

He's been a little cautious ever since they broke up, or whatever. 'S kinda nice, for a change.

_Stiles_. He’s bad news, Derek reminds himself, the worst kind of distraction… but ever since Derek landed in Vermont he’s just a tantalizing few hours away, at Peller University. Every year Derek resolves to forget about him, and every year he lets his guard down just a little too far. Stiles is always everywhere, or nowhere, at the exactly wrong moment.

He’s a noisy memory, Derek thinks, just a loud ghost. Rockets are up by 8.


	3. Dark Blue

1.

The number of unanswered texts that Stiles is willing to send is directly proportional to how depressed he is. This winter’s a bad one: the head of the department gave him an extra TA in the middle of fall semester and told him to think long and hard about his future at the university. He feels and operates like a sack of shit, in other words. His text messages with Derek look like one long line of blue, weeks since one of Derek’s little responses in his Android green bubble.

“I want something better,” he texts Derek one day. Expecting nothing in response, musing aloud to himself like he does. He imagines sometimes that Derek doesn’t even read his messages, just logs the noise. Stiles feels like he’s banging on Derek’s proverbial door.

He gets a message back, though. Reads it while the floor next to his couch, where he’s slid onto a fallen pillow.

“Don’t text that shit unless you’re asking for my help to get it,” Derek’s responded. “Stop just wanting things out into the universe, and take some accountability for your own damn life.”

Stiles feels an eyebrow quirk up involuntarily. He's such a sucker for getting saved.

4.

And-- Stiles isn't the heartbreaking city slicker Derek makes him out to be. 

Just because Derek's earnest and gentle and lives in a gingerbread house in Vermont or whatever doesn't mean Stiles is some sort of vixen. Stiles isn't even that broken, he pouts to himself. Derek's just undamaged, Stiles thinks. Like a sexy virgin or something. 

Not that he's a literal virgin, obviously, and not that that's even hot to Stiles (it's not), but Derek's pure. There's something about him that's so doggedly good, like he just won't stop trying.

The hardest part is:

He’s soft. Even when he’s telling Stiles to fuck off, leaving his drunk ass on a curb in New Haven at 4am, telling him he deserves every shitty thing that's happened to him-- there are no sharp edges. 

Not gentle, not whimsical. But: softer, as in, not hard. He’s always been that way.

And he’s sweet. Even when he’s cool-- looking aloof at an art opening in Bed Stuy, turning down every come on without so much as blinking an eye-- he cares about other people. Wants everyone to have a nice time, feel good, be safe. Wants to work hard to make everyone OK.

Stiles isn't so righteous. He's weaker, for one-- no self control, prone to self-destruction, prone to sexting and cocktails and rule breaking-- and less ambitious, for two. Derek doesn't understand what it's like to not give a shit about your career or academic interests, so he doesn't understand Stiles’ propensity for restless misbehavior during unscheduled free time. Derek doesn't understand “free time,” Stiles thinks glumy. He's too busy filling his schedule with errands and reading and sisters and other people's birthday brunches. 

Stiles wishes he wasn't in love with him. He's a loud ghost. Little green text message bubble popping up just when Stiles thinks he's all by his lonesome.


	4. Red Light

1.

“I'm seeing someone, actually. She works in alumni relations. She's cool.”

Derek hasn't actually said that out loud before, and it feels like a lie the second it leaves his lips. Ashley’s 24. They've been out five times and they just started having vanilla, athletic sex. She doesn't even know he's bi. He can't quite remember her last name right now. “Seeing someone” feels generous.

Stiles clears his throat. “Ah, is she-- the one from the other night?”

The other night: texting, sexting, Skype. Derek had called Stiles daddy for almost an hour while they both worked themselves up. It was the farthest they'd gone with that kink. Derek had been face down on the bed, two fingers in his mouth, other hand fucking his own ass. He'd had four of his fingers in his ass when Stiles called him a good baby boy, my good little boy, that's right baby, be good for daddy, baby-- and he came and passed out.

“Yeah, that night,” Derek admits. He'd left Ashley's apartment when Stiles texted. _You say jump_ , he thinks, _I say, how high?_

Stiles murmurs in understanding, not gloating like he could if he wanted to.

"Well I don't want to, like, step on toes or whatever," Stiles says. He sounds like he's taking a walk or running errands, Derek thinks. Keeping it PG in public. "I thought when you said you were out with someone it was a colleague or something--"

"You're fine, I didn't-- I could've told you, obviously. I didn't feel obligated."

Mutual discomfort throbs through the phone line.

"Okay," says Derek, trying to break the tension. This call is starting to give him a migraine. "Was there a reason you asked?"

Stiles makes a small, uncomfortable laughing sound.

"Uh, well it's moot now, but our spring break's the week before yours and I was going to see if you-- wanted a visitor, I guess? I dunno, I couldn't remember when you'd be grading but I was hoping to see something that wasn't Connecticut for a few days."

Derek could fucking die, to be honest, with how badly he wants to say yes. Stiles has never offered to visit, has barely been willing to travel anywhere to see Derek. It's like the minute Derek starts to move on he decides to swap out the worst parts of his personality just to make a point.

"Hey, you're the one who said yes to Connecticut. You made your bed, you gotta sleep in it," he says, deflecting.

"Yeah I was hoping to come check out-- uh, the bed _you_ sleep in, I guess," Stiles replies.

"I hate you, you know that? I liked you better when you were mean and elusive."

Stiles sputters like he doesn't know he's been a piece of shit for the last three years.

"Elusive? I was never elusive!"

Derek's smiling in spite of himself. "It's fine, Stiles. Maybe next semester?"

"Sure. That's fine. Don't flirt-fight with me, though."

"Well, don't text me then."

"Don't answer."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine."

.

2.

“I’m watching a girl, uh, suck on Lydia’s nipples,” Stiles says, laughing nervously, sounding a little manic.

Derek closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the wall. “You’ve gotta be kidding me, Stiles.” He’s fucked up, Derek thinks. He can’t possibly think this is normal.

“No I’m serious, they’re, like… she’s just sort of lightly licking and sucking? It’s all very chill, very non….urgent.”

Derek’s never been so pissed to be turned on.

“Where are you, Stiles?”

“Well I’m at Lydia’s, but I’m not allowed in the bedroom so I’m watching them on a webcam.”

“Are you calling me while you take a break from a threesome? Is that what’s happening here?”

Stiles is giggling with increasing intensity.

“No! Maybe? Honestly I hadn’t thought about it, I was thinking about you! Are you-- how are you? Are you well? Are you-- can you talk right now?”

Derek thinks he can hear Stiles shuffling and walking, like he’s scrambling away from wherever he is in an effort to straighten up before talking to Derek. He does this, and it’s so fucking endearing Derek could scream-- acts like a teenager caught in the act, trying to convince an adult that he’s sober and following the rules.

“Stiles, you are not always very nice to me, you know. So, yes I am well, thank you for calling, but I thought we talked about you not doing this anymore.”

Stiles doesn’t have anything to say to that. Derek can hear him sighting lightly.

“I mean, I’m right, right? You probably shouldn’t call in general, and you definitely shouldn’t call me like this, when you’re watching Lydia fuck or whatever.”

He's still silent. Derek is fighting off warring urges to take hang up or buy Stiles a plane ticket to Burlington. 

They get off the phone, Derek doesn't remember the rest. Stiles is bashful; Derek's turned on and annoyed and heartsick and confused. He goes to the kitchen and stares at a bottle of gin that Boyd made him promise to save for spring break. There's weed in the living room, that's what he should use right now-- keep things calm, laid back. But he's thinking about Stiles, now, thinking about Stiles thinking about him, thinking about nipples, thinking about the time in New York when Stiles did a line of coke off his chest and sucked on his nipples while he grabbed Derek's throat and rubbed against him.

The memory steals Derek's present entirely, and he's so absorbed that he just stands at the counter for minutes, unmoving, until suddenly the spell breaks. And then he's pouring a drink and grabbing his cock and texting Stiles I'm sorry, I'm sorry daddy, I miss you, I've been bad but I want to be good for you, I'm sorry, I miss you daddy--

Stiles responds instantaneously: it's okay baby, I love you, I miss you, it's okay, you're okay, show me, show me, take a picture, send me a picture, I love you baby, you're so beautiful, come visit me, I want you here, I want to take care of you here in my bed.

And Derek does, takes a picture and sends it and starts making noises that scare him, whimpering and moaning as he touches himself and waits for Stiles' response. He drinks to give his mouth something to do, waits for Stiles to tell him that he's good, he's a good boy, good boy, you're so good for daddy. Drinks because he feels like a ghost in his own house. Drinks because he's texting Stiles, who he hasn't seen in years, who might not even be real, who might just be a voice and image who lives in his phone and computer and memory and the most self-loathing parts of his mind.

Later that night, Derek wakes up-- he came and stumbled into bed, lube on his thigh, phone clutched in his hand like a lifeline. Stiles texted him a video, about an hour after he fell asleep, of two women in a red room. A room full of red lights.

_It's red, red everywhere. Lydia's face; another woman Derek doesn't recognize. They're talking to Stiles as he films, touching each other, putting their fingers inside each other. Lydia's tits are in the other woman's face, in her mouth; Stiles reaches out to push her hair back. There's music over everything, loud and electric, and their voices blur and blend. The camera tilts down to Stiles' red hand on his red cock, stroking up and down. He's hard and rigid but lazy, lazy, moving his hand slowly. Then he tilts back up, holds the camera steady as Lydia lowers herself onto the other woman's fingers, nipples hard, riding and grinding. And then Stiles spins the camera around to film himself and he closes his eyes to blow a kiss with red lips and red fingers._


End file.
